Political Prisoners

News about Political Prisoners, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Feb. 19, 2015

Family of imprisoned Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian says Iranian judge Abolghassem Salavati has inhibited their efforts to assign lawyer Masoud Shafiei to case; family says that Salavati has failed to give Shafiei permission to visit Rezaian and obtain his signed consent. MORE

Feb. 14, 2015

Mary Rezaian, mother of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, who has been imprisoned in Iran since July 2014, says Iranian authorities have curbed prison visits from his Iranian wife and fears his trial will not begin til April. MORE

Feb. 14, 2015

Spokesman for Russian Pres Vladimir V Putin denies there was ever any agreement to free Ukrainian helicopter pilot Nadiya V Savchenko, even as State Department insists Russia agreed to her release as part of Minsk negotiations to free all war prisoners. MORE

Feb. 4, 2015

State Department senior human rights official Tom Malinowski says Cuba temporarily detained 178 political prisoners in January, down from 489 in December 2014; warns that it may be too early to determine if reduced numbers are a trend. MORE

Feb. 2, 2015

Egypt deports Australian television journalist Peter Greste, who was jailed for over a year on politicized charges about his work; he was one of three jailed journalists for Al Jazeera's English-language unit. MORE

Jan. 14, 2015

Former Marine Amir Hekmati, who has been imprisoned in Iran for over three years, says in letter to Iranian Pres Hassan Rouhani that his family has been getting phone calls and emails from Iran proposing prisoner trades for Iranians incarcerated in United States. MORE

Jan. 13, 2015

United States officials say Cuban government has freed 53 prisoners as part of agreement to reestablish diplomatic relations between two countries; dissidents were designated by US during secret negotiations; Cuban opposition activists question whether government actually freed all of them. MORE

Jan. 9, 2015

Cuba releases more than two dozen dissidents, some of them believed to be among 53 it had agreed to free as the United States and Cuba decided to normalize diplomatic relations. MORE

Dec. 30, 2014

Russian court moves up declaration of verdict in criminal case against Aleksei A Navalny, one of country's most visible political activists and critic of Pres Vladimir V Putin; date change indicates he could be sentenced to long prison term just before New Year's Eve, when many Russians are preoccupied; he is accused of defrauding French perfurme company Yves Rocher. MORE

Dec. 19, 2014

Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, who was released from Cuban prison after nearly 20 years as part of Cuban prisoner exchange, gave important code information to Central Intelligence Agency to help detect spies; while his work for the CIA is still classified, his clandestine operations helped agency long after he was arrested. MORE

Dec. 17, 2014

Relatives of Amir Hekmati, former Marine imprisoned in Iran, say he has begun hunger strike and release open letter he wrote to Pres Obama urging that he not be forgotten as America intensifies negotiations with Iran on its disputed nuclear program. MORE

Dec. 13, 2014

Uighur linguist and poet Abduweli Ayup is reportedly released from prison in Xinjian, China. MORE

Dec. 11, 2014

Liao Yiwu, prominent Chinese writer living in Berlin, says he has received message from Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Peace Prize winner who has been imprisoned by Chinese authorities since 2008; Liao declines to explain how message made its way to him. MORE

Dec. 7, 2014

U Htein Lin was detained for more than six years in Myanmar as a political prisoner, but has recently returned to teach meditation to prisoners and guards; says that meditation helped him survive his own incarceration, and that he wanted to pass on that skill to others. MORE

Dec. 4, 2014

Judicial authorities in Iran extend by at least two months detention of Washington Post's Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian, who has been imprisoned without explanation since July, kept in solitary confinement and denied access to a lawyer. MORE

Nov. 7, 2014

Romanian-born American Andrei Ursu ends his 17-day hunger strike when Romania's government, after years of delay and inaction, agrees to open a new investigation into beating death of his father, a prominent dissident, in a communist-era prison three decades earlier. MORE

Oct. 8, 2014

Pres Thein Sein of Myanmar pledges to release 3,073 prisoners for the sake of 'peace and stability'; US State Department welcomes move, which comes a month before country is to host East Asia Summit. MORE

Oct. 3, 2014

Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail B Khodorkovsky vows to lead a drive to counter Pres Vladimir V Putin but has not yet dared to return to Russia; visit by country's most famous dissident to Washington signals re-emergence after period of staying out of sight; he spent decade in prison camps. MORE

Sep. 25, 2014

China's prison sentence given to Uighur academic Ilham Tohti on charges of separatism draws torrent of international outrage; analysts say it is an indication of China's intolerance for criticism of its approach to ethnic minorities. MORE

Sep. 22, 2014

Family of Amir Hekmati, former United States Marine incarcerated in Tehran for three years, calls attention to case by releasing video in which his terminally ill father appeals to Iranian leaders for Hekmati's release; video appears ahead of opening of the United Nations General Assembly. MORE

Sep. 16, 2014

Egyptian court releases left-leaning activist Alaa Abd El Fattah from prison on bail; release is rare example of leniency in the thousands of cases of political dissenters arrested since military takeover in 2013. MORE

Sep. 15, 2014

North Korea's Supreme Court sentences Matthew Todd Miller, one of three Americans known to be held in country, to six years of hard labor for committing alleged hostile acts against state. MORE

Sep. 1, 2014

Irina Dovgan, Ukranian woman who was detained by pro-Russian separatists near her home in eastern Ukraine and subjected to public beatings and mock executions, is released and allowed to leave rebel-controlled territory. MORE

Aug. 8, 2014

China releases dissident lawyer Gao Zhisheng from prison but is likely to remain under police surveillance; before police detained him in 2006, he was one of country's most combative human rights advocates. MORE

Jul. 25, 2014

Moscow court convicts prominent activists Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev and sentences them to four and a half years in a prison colony for their roles in organizing a protest a day before President Vladimir V Putin’s inauguration in May 2012. MORE

Jul. 19, 2014

Mother of Amir Hekmati, American of Iranian descent imprisoned in Tehran for nearly three years, has written to Pres Obama asking him to keep her son in mind in negotiations with Iran over its disputed nuclear program. MORE

Jun. 19, 2014

Three activists in China who had demanded that public officials disclose their assets are sentenced to prison; they had been part of a nationwide asset-disclosure-advocacy movement that drew special disfavor from the government. MORE

Jun. 17, 2014

Egyptian prosecutors will release hunger-striking journalist Abdullah Elshamy because of his deteriorating health; release is concession on treatment of one of more than 16,000 prisoners detained since the military takeover. MORE

Jun. 12, 2014

Blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah, one Egypt’s most prominent dissidents, is among three men arrested while waiting outside a court in Cairo to stand trial for violating the government’s ban on unsanctioned protests; men are sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. MORE

Apr. 28, 2014

Vyachislav Ponomaryov, self-appointed mayor of breakaway city of Slovyansk, Ukraine, publicly displays eight detained members of European military observer mission but refuses to discuss conditions under which they might go free, drawing international condemnation; Ponomaryov has branded observers as spies. MORE

Apr. 24, 2014

Head of Iran’s judiciary removes country's highest prison official after what human rights advocates say was a violent raid on political prisoners in Tehran's largest prison facility. MORE

Apr. 22, 2014

Iran's penal authorities seek to discredit reports of a violent clash inside political detainee block in Tehran's Evin Prison. MORE

Apr. 15, 2014

Vietnamese officials say high-profile dissidents Vi Duc Hoi and Nguyen Tien Trung have been released, raising the number of democracy activists freed in April to three. MORE

Mar. 26, 2014

Op-Ed article by Leopoldo Lopez, Venezualan opposition leader and former mayor, describes how he has been imprisoned by Venezuelan authorities for urging people to exercise their rights to protest and free speech; warns that more mayors who belong to the opposition will join him in prison soon; calls for the release of political prisoners and dissenters, and for the international community to get involved. MORE

Mar. 11, 2014

Video of unusual prisoner swap between the Syrian government and insurgents appears to confirm the government has been holding women and children prisoner, including relatives of suspected opposition fighters; prisoners were swapped with Syrian nuns the opposition fighters had held for more than three months. MORE

Mar. 1, 2014

Russia's leading opposition figure Aleksei A Navalny is placed under house arrest and ordered not to use the Internet or telephone for two months, thus removing Pres Vladimir V Putin's fiercest critic from public life. MORE

Feb. 21, 2014

Liu Xia, wife of Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned dissident who won 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, has been hospitalized; Ms Liu, who has been under house arrest for the past three years, is said to be suffering from a heart ailment and severe depression. MORE

Feb. 13, 2014

Yevgeny Vitishko, environmentalist and leading critic of Russia’s preparations to host the Winter Olympics, is sentenced to serve three years in a penal colony, in a ruling that rights groups condemned as legally flawed and obvious retribution for his political activities. MORE

Dec. 31, 2013

Myanmar frees five prisoners, and more are expected to be released as part of a pledge by Pres Thein Sein to free all political prisoners by the end of 2013. MORE

Dec. 25, 2013

Mikhail B Khodorkovsky, former oil tycoon and political opponent of Vladimir V Putin, applies for a three-month Swiss visa just four days after his release from a Russian prison, which will allow him to travel to 26 nations around Europe. MORE

Dec. 23, 2013

Former billionaire Mikhail B Khodorkovsky, pardoned after a decade in prison, pledges to use his freedom to help other political prisoners in Russia; describing his experiences to journalists in Germany, he remains undaunted in his criticism of Pres Vladimir Putin, but says Russians must change themselves before the country can progress. MORE

Dec. 23, 2013

Serge Schmemann Editorial Observer describes meeting with Mikhail Khodorkovsky 36 hours after Russian Pres Vladimir Putin released him by presidential decree; notes Khodorkovsky says Russia's problem is that a majority of its citizens do not understand that they must take responsibility for their own fate. MORE

Dec. 20, 2013

Russian Pres Vladimir V Putin says Mikhail B Khodorkovsky, former oil tycoon and aspiring political rival, could soon be freed from prison; move is unexpected and a striking reversal of Putin's authoritarian rule, and many see it as an attempt to quiet critics before the Winter Olympics. MORE

Dec. 19, 2013

Russian Parliament's lower house passes amnesty bill that seems to promise freedom for defendants in some of country's most politically charged cases; two jailed members of the punk protest group Pussy Riot and the 30 Greenpeace demonstrators arrested at an Arctic offshore oil rig appeared to be among those likely to receive amnesty. MORE

Dec. 13, 2013

Editorial criticizes those who are overreacting to hand shake between Pres Obama and Cuban Pres Raul Castro at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela; calls for an end to America's embargo on Cuba and for an overhaul of policy toward the country; holds Castro regime must also do its part by releasing State Department contractor Alan Gross and other political prisoners. MORE

Dec. 12, 2013

Nicholas D Kristof Op-Ed column holds Americans can uphold spirit of Nelson Mandela by advocating for political prisoners and human rights around the world; calls on Pres Obama to make a stronger push to close prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to further honor Mandela's legacy. MORE

Dec. 4, 2013

United States contractor Alan Gross appeals to Pres Obama to take any steps necessary to secure his release from Cuban jail, where he has been held for four years. MORE

Nov. 29, 2013

Liu Xia, the wife of the Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, says she finds joy in reading. “My reading has no specific goal; for me it’s rather like breathing — I have to do it in order to live,” she wrote in a letter. MORE

Nov. 20, 2013

Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned Chinese dissident who won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, will challenge his 2009 conviction on subversion charges in court. MORE

Nov. 16, 2013

Myanmar's president pardons 69 political prisoners as part of promise to free all such detainees by end of 2013. MORE

The mother of Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent, who has been incarcerated without publicly explained charges since July 22, said Friday that she feared new delays in his trial.